Back in 2012, one of the major employers in Montrose, Colorado, a sawmill, was in receivership and on the brink of collapse. At the time, local media reported that the cost of logging timber had become prohibitively expensive, and the log yard was nearly empty.

These days, logs are stacked high next to a humming mill. Production is up 20 percent from even just 2016.

Illinois’ agriculture sector has been through trade disruptions in the past … but what they’re dealing with right NOW ... is different.

Mark Gebhards is Executive Director of Government Affairs & Commodities with the Illinois Farm Bureau … he says corn and soybean farmers have weathered other trade disagreements … like the tariffs they’re currently facing from China.